Monday, December 15, 2008

A bunch of people have sent in complaints about the WSJ Google article. I think this Wired analysis, sent in by reader b, is the best. The WSJ was wrong that Google had changed their position, but there is nonetheless reason for concern about the edge caching they're engaging in. On the margin there's nothing wrong with it as it speeds up the internets. But if content providers continue to do this they'll effectively privilege their own content over others, and if the main tubes get clogged while their content flows more freely it will in effect be an erosion of net neutrality even if it wasn't their evil intention.